Business Reporter
Government has partnered the World Bank in organising a two-day long strategy workshop to examine the domestic experiences of doing business in Zimbabwe and find solutions to improve the business climate. Stakeholders from various sectors will meet at the Wild Geese Lodge today to examine the regulatory and administrative barriers to doing business. The workshop, which runs until tomorrow, will discuss measures to be adopted in the short, medium to long term to eliminate the administrative, legal and policy barriers and adopt an action plan to deliver results.

Finance and Economic Development Minister Patrick Chinamasa, Industry and Commerce Minister Mike Bimha and World Bank country manager Ms Camelle Nuamah will be among high profile delegates at the workshop.

The workshop is expected to pave the way for actual reforms, which would generate momentum for further reforms and improvements to the country`s Doing Business environment and overall investment climate.

According to the World Bank, Zimbabwe is ranked 170 out of 189 economies, a negligible two places up from 172 in 2013 and 170 in 2012. This indicates that the cost, time and procedures for doing business in Zimbabwe is high for locals and also deters even the foreign investors

“The workshop is expected to examine the experiences of Zimbabwean businesses in dealing with regulatory hurdles and administrative barriers that pose significant cost to business,” World Bank said in a statement.

“The doing business environment in Zimbabwe is in need of an urgent revamp to attract the much needed investment as well as improve its low ranking on the World Bank Ease of Doing Business Index,” World Bank said.

Zimbabwe attracted a mere $400 million foreign direct investment last year, with doing business conditions cited part of the major deterrents to FDI. Countries such as Mozambique, Zambia and South Africa attracted more.

A COMESA Doing Business Workshop held in May 2012 in Harare, recommended the setting up of an institutional framework to keep reviewing doing business indicators and propose necessary action to the same.

A multi-stakeholder workshop was then held in April 2013 to find ways to improve the business environment in Zimbabwe through the assistance of the United Nations Development Programme and Deloitte.

The workshop reviewed indicators used by the World Bank in the Doing Business rankings, identified the reforms necessary to lift Zimbabwe into the top ten ranking and recommended actions to improve each indicator.

The strategy workshop is also a response to the request from the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development, at the 2013 World Bank annual meeting, which requested for assistance on doing business reforms.

This also comes as that the Ministry of Industry and Commerce has established a Doing Business Committee to improve the business environment.
The workshop will draw participants from entities that directly relate with the doing business indicators to cover the detail of each indicator, examine the performance and identify opportunities for improving the performance.

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